Sarah Moon French, b. 1941

A pale satin dress with enormous black spots, cut wide and stiff so that it stands away from the body like a bell. Beneath it a black underskirt swings out further still. The woman inside has raised both arms and folded them over her head, hands clasped, so that all that survives of her face is a pale sliver between her wrists. Thin dark legs come down out of the skirt and end in two small shoes with white straps, set neatly side by side. Behind her a teal wall, and a band of olive light laid along the floor.

The dots refuse to behave like pattern. They are too black and too round, and against the satin they read as holes punched through to something behind the picture. The gesture is borrowed as well, from every image of somebody hiding, or dancing, or being taken away. Moon assembled a figure out of quotations and then held it absolutely still, which is what a photograph is for.

The shoes undo all of it. They are small, flat, buckled at the ankle, and placed side by side with the obedience of someone told to stand still for a picture. A monumental silhouette, a dress built like architecture, and at the bottom of it two feet that have been told not to move. The whole image tips there, out of couture and into something more tender and slightly frightened. Everything above the ankles is theatre. The shoes are just a person waiting to be allowed to go.